“Red Chases Blue” First steps

As our first assignment we’ve been requested to do a free project around the topic “red chases blue”, we’ll have 2 weeks to accomplish this project.

It has been a bit complicated for me to figure out a project around this topic due to the huge possibilities it brings. As I was unable to reach any initial idea with wich I could start to work I have first started researching about the title.

I have looked for the meanings of the colours given, to which concepts they are related, for that matter I have looked in this page (Link) where I found the psychological meaning of Red and Blue:

–Red: For red I have found that it’s a color that sends us different meanings. They are divided in positive and negative. As I wanted to create to different sides, hero and villains, I’ve decided that the red would be the villain. Therefore, I’ve concentrated my attention on the negative one.
Red transmits lust, irritation, anger, revenge, agitation… and is related to blood and war. Usually it is related with evil.

–Blue: I wanted that blue was the colour of our hero because it transmits peace and is in some cases related with the good.
I found that blue give us a sensation of trust, responsibility, loyalty, peace, tranquility… it is also related with friendship and the will to help others. It is persistent and determined to succeed in whichever endeavour it pursues, it sounds like the perfect color to create a hero around.

Brainstorming

Thinking in the meanings, I have decided to create a background with two factions, one red and one blue, where the red would be warlords and conquerors that only look for power and the domain other civilizations no matter what. Whilst, the blue would be like peaceful monks who have reach a great power throw the comprehension and coexistence with nature and other races.

As I definitely wanted at this point to do something related with orient because of the monks and also, I have linked the blue colour with the Djinns, that appears in Aladdin’s Disney film, I came with the idea that the hero will be a free Air Djinn (I thought that could have similar powers as the Air bender main character) whose girlfriend has been caught by this conquering race, and now is trapped inside a lamp. Therefore, the mission on the game would be to rescue the hero girlfriend and escape from the enemy territory avoiding the attempts of the red faction to recover his girlfriend’s lamp and capture the hero in another one.

In all this process I have had in mind different references such as Aladdin, Airbender, Zelda, Trine (because I’m thinking in having a similar type of lateral camera and maybe puzzles), Mario bros. and Prince of Persia.

Thoughts and work

I am not still quite sure if the game would be a runner, a platform or other type of lateral game, I am still thinking on which of those types could fit better with this type of idea.

By the moment I have done a bit of work on the concept of both characters, the Djinn (blue) and the Red race (a mix of demon and pig) without looking any references so I can see what I can bring by myself without spoil my imagination with others work. The next step will be looking for references to improve or rework these ideas.

These are preliminary sketches and I’m sure I will improve them in the future ;D

(Sorry for the bad quality of the images but, it is all I could do with only an iphone and photoshop :P)